The recent spate of anti-gay hate crimes has shocked many in the gay community. According to police, these crimes have more than doubled so far this year from 14 to 29, and most have been in Manhattan.

There's evidence the gay ban has hurt the organization. Membership rolls have dropped in three of the four regions overall nationally, according to a source within the Boy Scouts of America who works in recruitment and writes under the pseudonym Andrew Johnson.

He said that paperwork from the national organization showed a 58 percent drop in membership between 1972 and 2012.

Some of us don’t have to imagine how painful it is to be a gay Scout. We were one. Growing up as a Mormon boy in Idaho, scouting was pretty much built into my pathway to becoming an adult. It was as much a part of the plan for my youth as many Mormon rights of passage: baptism, being ordained to the priesthood, and passing the sacrament on Sundays.

This morning TV icon and former Boy Scout, George Takei, changed his Facebook profile picture to include the Equality in Scouting badge and say "It's okay to be Takei in scouting." He also posted a longer message to his Facebook page calling on the BSA to "do the right thing." Today in Dallas, Texas, 1400 members of the Boy Scouts of America will vote on a resolution to end the Boy Scouts of America's ban on gay teenagers.

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